Opioid and tachykinin systems are involved in modulation of pain transmission in the spinal cord. Regulation of surface opioid receptors on nociceptive afferents is critical for opioid analgesia. Plasma-membrane insertion of delta-opioid receptors (DORs) is induced by stimulus-triggered exocytosis of DOR-containing large dense-core vesicles (LDCVs), but how… (More)

Hedgehog (Hh) signaling regulates embryonic development and adult tissue homeostasis through the GPCR-like protein Smoothened (Smo), but how vertebrate Smo is activated remains poorly understood. In Drosophila, Hh dependent phosphorylation activates Smo. Whether this is also the case in vertebrates is unclear, owing to the marked sequence divergence between… (More)

There are two major secretory pathways in neurons, the regulated pathway and the constitutive pathway. Neuropeptides and other regulated secretory proteins are known to be sorted into large dense-core vesicles of the regulated pathway in the trans-Golgi network and are secreted upon stimulus-induced increases in intracellular Ca(2+). The newly synthesized… (More)

The complete mitochondrial genome of the spinyhead croaker Collichthys lucidus was determined using long-PCR and primer walking methods. It is a circular molecule of 16,451 bp in length with a standard set of 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs, 13 protein-coding genes as well as a non-coding control region in the same order as those of the other bony fishes. C. lucidus… (More)

Fluctuations of global climate changes during the Pleistocene had a huge impact on the marginal seas of the Northwestern Pacific. To examine historical demography and the population genetic structure of Collichthys lucidus, a total of 151 individuals from 7 locations were sequenced at the 5′ end of mitochondrial DNA control region and 380-bp fragments were… (More)

—The Rigid Internal Fixation is one of the commonly used methods to reconstruct the mandible in bone repair surgery. This research proposed a complete flow of the designing and Finite Element Analysis (FEA).The customized titanium plate and screws model were imported in Mimics, then fitted and simulated with the shape of mandible 3D model. The simulation… (More)